Visakhapatnam: The aided schools in Visakhapatnam district have been grappling with a range of issues such as acute staff crunch, lack of infrastructure and funds. These educational institutions are functioning at about 50% of the sanctioned strength of teachers as there has been no recruitment since 2004.These factors have forced several schools to shut shop in the last one decade. While the government school students are provided with learning infrastructure such as computers, science kits and others, students at the aided schools hardly have access to any such facilities.Andhra Pradesh Teachers’ Guild (APTG) working president, A Victor Immanuel, said the primary right of a student to get quality education was jeopardised due to lack of sufficient faculty. “Earlier, the government barred the managements of these institutions from recruiting teachers. After the blanket ban on recruitments and promotions was lifted in 2017, the government gave its nod for a limited recruitment. But it has not made any headway due to varied reasons,” said Immanuel.Immanuel stressed the need of rationalising the faculty between the schools based on the strength of students. “A special DSC should be announced after concluding the rationalisation process,” he said. He complained that the aided teachers are deprived of basic facilities like health cards, medical reimbursement, provident fund and others unlike their government counterparts.When TOI visited a few aided schools in Visakhapatnam, a majority of them had derelict school buildings. A representative of an aided school said they are availing the services of private teachers, who work for meagre salaries, to just run the show temporarily. “The dwindling enrolment rates is making the schools economically nonviable. We’re no longer interested in upgrading the infrastructure at the schools,” he added.The state government has extended its schemes like mid-day meals, free uniform supply and cycles to the girl students in the aided schools. But the management of aided schools say that it will go a long way if the government supports construction of rooms and kitchen sheds in these schools.

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